Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs

Rasputin separates fact from fiction to reveal the real life of one of history's most alluring figures. Drawing on a wealth of forgotten documents from archives in seven countries, Smith presents Rasputin in all his complexity - man of God, voice of peace, loyal subject, adulterer, drunkard. Rasputin is not just a definitive biography of an extraordinary and legendary man, but a fascinating portrait of the twilight of imperial Russia as it lurched toward catastrophe.

William Tecumseh Sherman: In the Service of My Country: A Life

General Sherman's 1864 burning of Atlanta solidified his legacy as a ruthless leader. Yet Sherman proved far more complex than his legendary military tactics reveal. James Lee McDonough offers fresh insight into a man tormented by the fear that history would pass him by, who was plagued by personal debts, and who lived much of his life separated from his family.

John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit

John Quincy Adams was the last of his kind - a Puritan from the age of the Founders who despised party and compromise yet dedicated himself to politics and government. The son of John Adams, he was a brilliant ambassador and secretary of state, a frustrated president at a historic turning point in American politics, and a dedicated congressman who literally died in office - at the age of 80, in the House of Representatives, in the midst of an impassioned political debate.

The Apache Wars: The Hunt for Geronimo, the Apache Kid, and the Captive Boy Who Started the Longest War in American History

They called him Mickey Free. His kidnapping started the longest war in American history, and both sides - the Apaches and the white invaders - blamed him for it. A mixed-blood warrior who moved uneasily between the worlds of the Apaches and the American soldiers, he was never trusted by either but desperately needed by both. He was the only man Geronimo ever feared. He played a pivotal role in this long war for the desert Southwest from its beginning in 1861 until its end in 1890 with his pursuit of the renegade scout Apache Kid.

American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant

A major new biography of the Civil War general and American president, by the author of the New York Times bestseller A. Lincoln. The dramatic story of one of America's greatest and most misunderstood military leaders and presidents, this is a major new interpretation of Ulysses S. Grant. Based on seven years of research with primary documents, some of them never tapped before, this is destined to become the Grant biography of our times.

Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS

Pulitzer Prize, General nonfiction, 2016. When Jordan granted amnesty to a group of political prisoners in 1999, it little realized that among them was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist mastermind and soon the architect of an Islamist movement bent on dominating the Middle East. In Black Flags, an unprecedented account of the rise of ISIS, Joby Warrick shows how the zeal of this one man and the strategic mistakes of Presidents Bush and Obama led to the banner of ISIS being raised over huge swaths of Syria and Iraq.

Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill

At age 24 Winston Churchill was utterly convinced it was his destiny to become prime minister of England one day, despite the fact he had just lost his first election campaign for Parliament. He believed that to achieve his goal, he had to do something spectacular on the battlefield. Despite deliberately putting himself in extreme danger as a British army officer in colonial wars in India and Sudan and as a journalist covering a Cuban uprising against the Spanish, glory and fame had eluded him.

The General vs. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War

From master storyteller and historian H. W. Brands, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, comes the riveting story of how President Harry Truman and General Douglas MacArthur squared off to decide America's future in the aftermath of World War II.

Iron Dawn: The Monitor, the Merrimack, and the Civil War Sea Battle That Changed History

No single sea battle has had more far-reaching consequences than the one fought in the harbor at Hampton Roads, Virginia, in March 1862. The Confederacy, with no fleet of its own, built an iron fort containing 10 heavy guns on the hull of a captured Union frigate named the Merrimack. The North got word of the project when it was already well along, and, in desperation, commissioned an eccentric inventor named John Ericsson to build the Monitor, an entirely revolutionary iron warship.

American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804

The American Revolution is often portrayed as a high-minded, orderly event whose capstone, the Constitution, provided the ideal framework for a democratic, prosperous nation. Alan Taylor, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, gives us a different creation story in this magisterial history of the nation's founding. Rising out of the continental rivalries of European empires and their native allies, Taylor's Revolution builds like a ground fire overspreading Britain's mainland colonies, fueled by local conditions, destructive, hard to quell.

Peter Stephens says:"Best book on the American Revolution that I have read"

The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt

In The First Tycoon, Stiles offers the first complete, authoritative biography of this titan, and the first comprehensive account of the Commodore's personal life. It is a sweeping, fast-moving epic, and a complex portrait of the great man. Vanderbilt, Stiles shows, embraced the philosophy of the Jacksonian Democrats and withstood attacks by his conservative enemies for being too competitive. He was a visionary who pioneered business models.

The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939-1945; Citizens and Soldiers

As early as 1941, Allied victory in World War II seemed all but assured. How and why, then, did the Germans prolong the barbaric conflict for three and a half more years? In The German War, acclaimed historian Nicholas Stargardt draws on an extraordinary range of primary source materials - personal diaries, court records, and military correspondence - to answer this question. He offers an unprecedented portrait of wartime Germany, bringing the hopes and expectations of the German people to vivid life.

The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West

With the end of the Civil War, the nation recommenced its expansion onto traditional Indian tribal lands, setting off a wide-ranging conflict that would last more than three decades. In an exploration of the wars and negotiations that destroyed tribal ways of life even as they made possible the emergence of the modern United States, Peter Cozzens gives us both sides in comprehensive and singularly intimate detail.

Al Capone: His Life, Legacy, and Legend

From his heyday to the present moment, Al Capone - Public Enemy Number One - has gripped popular imagination. Rising from humble Brooklyn roots, Capone went on to become the most infamous gangster in American history. At the height of Prohibition, his multimillion-dollar Chicago bootlegging, prostitution, and gambling operation dominated the organized-crime scene.

Valiant Ambition: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and the Fate of the American Revolution

In September 1776 the vulnerable Continental Army, under an unsure George Washington (who had never commanded a large force in battle), evacuates New York after a devastating defeat by the British army. Three weeks later, near the Canadian border, one of his favorite generals, Benedict Arnold, miraculously succeeds in postponing the British naval advance down Lake Champlain that might have ended the war.

The Myth of the Lost Cause: Why the South Fought the Civil War and Why the North Won

The former Confederate states have continually mythologized the South's defeat to the North, depicting the Civil War as unnecessary, or as a fight over states' Constitutional rights, or as a David v. Goliath struggle in which the North waged "total war" over an underdog South. In The Myth of the Lost Cause, historian Edward Bonekemper deconstructs this multi-faceted myth, revealing the truth about the war that nearly tore the nation apart 150 years ago.

The Sympathizer: A Novel

Pulitzer Prize, Fiction, 2016. It is April 1975, and Saigon is in chaos. At his villa, a general of the South Vietnamese army is drinking whiskey and, with the help of his trusted captain, drawing up a list of those who will be given passage aboard the last flights out of the country. The general and his compatriots start a new life in Los Angeles, unaware that one among their number, the captain, is secretly observing and reporting on the group to a higher-up in the Viet Cong.

Grant Takes Command

This conclusion of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Bruce Catton's acclaimed Civil War history of General Ulysses S. Grant begins in the summer of 1863. After Grant's bold and decisive triumph over the Confederate Army at Vicksburg - a victory that wrested control of the Mississippi River from Southern hands - President Abraham Lincoln promoted Grant to the head of the Army of the Potomac.

Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877

The period following the Civil War was one of the most controversial eras in American history. This comprehensive account of the period captures the drama of those turbulent years that played such an important role in shaping modern America.

Mr. Lincoln's Army

A magnificent history of the opening years of the Civil War by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Bruce Catton. The first book in Bruce Catton's Pulitzer Prize-winning Army of the Potomac Trilogy, Mr. Lincoln's Army is a riveting history of the early years of the Civil War, when a fledgling Union Army took its stumbling first steps under the command of the controversial general George McClellan.

Encounters at the Heart of the World: A History of the Mandan People

Encounters at the Heart of the World concerns the Mandan Indians, iconic Plains people whose teeming, busy towns on the upper Missouri River were, for centuries, at the center of the North American universe. We know of them mostly because Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1804-1805 with them, but why don't we know more? Who were they really? In this extraordinary book, Elizabeth A. Fenn retrieves their history by piecing together important new discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, geology, climatology, epidemiology, and nutritional science.

Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume One

In the first multivolume biography of Abraham Lincoln to be published in decades, Lincoln scholar Michael Burlingame offers a fresh look at the life of one of America's greatest presidents. Incorporating the field notes of earlier biographers along with decades of research in multiple manuscript archives and long-neglected newspapers, this remarkable work will both alter and reinforce our current understanding of America's 16th president.

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life

Pulitzer Prize, Biography, 2016.Barbarian Days is William Finnegan's memoir of an obsession, a complex enchantment. Surfing only looks like a sport. To initiates it is something else entirely: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way of life.

Abraham Lincoln: A Life, Volume Two

In volume 2, Burlingame examines Lincoln's presidency and the trials of the Civil War. He supplies fascinating details on the crisis over Fort Sumter and the relentless office seekers who plagued Lincoln. He introduces listeners to the president's battles with hostile newspaper editors and his quarrels with incompetent field commanders. Burlingame also interprets Lincoln's private life, discussing his marriage to Mary Todd, the untimely death of his son, Willie, to disease in 1862, and his recurrent anguish over the enormous human costs of the war.

Publisher's Summary

From the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner, a brilliant new biography of Gen. George Armstrong Custer that radically changes our view of the man and his turbulent times.

In this magisterial biography, T. J. Stiles paints a portrait of Custer both deeply personal and sweeping in scope, proving how much of Custer's legacy has been ignored. He demolishes Custer's historical caricature, revealing a volatile, contradictory, intense person - capable yet insecure, intelligent yet bigoted, passionate yet self-destructive, a romantic individualist at odds with the institution of the military (he was court-martialed twice in six years).

The key to understanding Custer, Stiles writes, is keeping in mind that he lived on a frontier in time. In the Civil War, the West, and many areas overlooked in previous biographies, Custer helped to create modern America, but he could never adapt to it. He freed countless slaves yet rejected new civil rights laws. He proved his heroism but missed the dark reality of war for so many others. A talented combat leader, he struggled as a manager in the West.

He tried to make a fortune on Wall Street yet never connected with the new corporate economy. Native Americans fascinated him, but he could not see them as fully human. A popular writer, he remained apart from Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, and other rising intellectuals. During Custer's lifetime, Americans saw their world remade. His admirers saw him as the embodiment of the nation's gallant youth, of all that they were losing; his detractors despised him for resisting a more complex and promising future. Intimate, dramatic, and provocative, this biography captures the larger story of the changing nation in Custer's tumultuous marriage to his highly educated wife, Libbie; their complicated relationship with Eliza Brown, the forceful black woman who ran their household; as well as his battles and expeditions.

What the Critics Say

"Spectacular...a satisfying portrait of a complex, controversial military man.... Confidently presenting Custer in all his contradictions, Stiles examines the times to make sense of the man - and uses the man to shed light on the times." (Publishers Weekly)

"Stiles doesn't disappoint with this powerful, provocative biography.... A highly recommended modern biography that successfully illuminates the lives of Custer and his family as part of the changing patterns of American society." (Library Journal)

"A warts-and-all portrait.... Stiles digs deep to deliver genuine insight into a man who never adapted to modernity." (Kirkus Reviews)

My interest in General Custer had mostly been related to his service during the Civil War and all of my reading that touched on his life had been concerned with that period. However I recently watched one of the old Western movies that described his life and, knowing that it was pure nonsense, it made me realize that I knew very little of his life after the end of the Civil War except for his death at the Little Bighorn. Hence the purchase of this book.

I believed this to be a biography of George A Custer and, to some extent, it was precisely that. However Mr Stiles has also given us a broad view of life during Custer's lifetime and that broad view helps to explain much of what Custer did and why. The book starts with Custer's application to and acceptance at West Point, follows his life through West Point, through his life on George McClellan's military staff and his appointment as a general and his first commands. It then describes his life after the Civil War, his re-entry into the military and his life through various commands until his assignment to the 7th Cavalry and the battle of the Little Big Horn.

The book is long (at 23+ hours), but is never boring. Along with Custer's life the author takes time to describe the changes taking place in that nation so we have a good and detailed explanation of President Johnson's conflict with the Republican congress after the end of the Civil War, the reasons for his impeachment, Custer's meddling in politics and his opposition to the reconstruction policies of President Grant, the influence of the rise of a new type of capitalism and the Vanderbilts, Goulds and the Guilded Age, Custer's literary attempts and the failures of his attempts to make money in speculation. There is also a great deal of time spent on the problems Custer had with his military and civilian superiors Grant, Sherman and Sheridan toward the end of his career.

This is a very good book and provides a clear picture of what life was like in the middle to late 19th century, but in my view it is tarnished by the author's unwillingness to avoid psychoanalyzing Custer and inventing motives for his actions. A good deal of information comes from Custer's letters to his life Elizabeth as well as to his friends and other family and these make fascinating reading. Custer opposed the attempts by the Federal Government to protect the liberated slaves and to ensure that they had the vote and should be rightly judged for his segregationist views and his attempts to oppose Reconstruction, but the author should also understand that Custer was not alone among northerners with these views and that the age was one of common opposition to equality. It is right to judge Custer, but not to judge Custer alone.

The book is narrated wonderfully by Author Morey and I recommend it for anyone with an interest in the middle to late 19th century in the United States.

Anyone looking for a balanced telling of this story will appreciate the setting of context. T. J. Stiles has done a masterful job of placing Custer within his time, even when Custer himself did not always feel comfortable in his time.

Who was your favorite character and why?

It has to be the engaging, complicated, maddening and delightful Custer himself.

What does Arthur Morey bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

His calm reading of the story enables one to remain objective about a subject that is anything but to most Americans.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I listened to the final chapter 4 times - the inquiry requested of the military by Reno made for interesting listening and while some of it was complicated, it was enlightening.

Any additional comments?

The only thing I would add, if it were somehow possible, was a map of the area of the battle. I plan to find one and listen AGAIN to the final chapter in order to fully understand it all. (I have been to the Custer battlefield at the Little Big Horn twice and the picture still eluded me.)

I thought I might gain a little bit of of knowledge about Custer, believing that I already knew Custer well. I was so wrong. I did not know as much as I thought I knew, and most of what I thought I knew was wrong. The author has done an incredible job of telling the reader about the man who was Custer and about the people around Custer and the world that Custer lived in. Most importantly, he put the reader into Custer's head and heart and considered the times that Custer faced and who and what made Custer who he was, beyond only being a brave man. If you like the whole period of American History around the Civil War and the first American depression, then you must read this book.

I am afraid I was not as impressed as a number of the reviewers were. Toward the end of the book I was wondering what had caused the author to devote so much time on the life of George Armstrong Custer. I am not saying that great men do not have faults, but I still think we can recognize that the faults are not sufficient to offset the greatness of the man. Not the case here. I do not view Custer as a great man, certainly not after listening to this volume.

His greatest contribution to his memory was that he and his company were completely annihilated at the battle of the Little Big Horn. I do admit that he was a warrior. He knew how to fight. But I didn't see much laudable in him other than that. Certainly not someone who should be emulated. So why did the author spend so much time researching and writing about he life of Custer. After finishing listening to the audible of the book, I can honestly say I have no idea. Very little time was spent on the battle of the Little Big Horn - basically just in the Epilogue. I think it would have been a much better book if it had just focused on his last battle, and not on a life that was not that commendable.

Outstanding verbal presentation combined with thorough research create a historical masterpiece. A new perspective on Custer which combines many historical opinions about this very complicated man. A great listen!